As discussed earlier, the global catalog contains a read-only copy of the objects from other domains in the forest. This partial copy includes only a subset of attributes—those commonly used for search operations as well as other required attributes. When considered as a whole, this copy is known as a partial attribute set (PAS), which can be changed to help customize the attributes available for speeding up search operations. When an attribute isn’t found in the local global catalog, the search might be referred to another domain controller.
